By The Editors

With the U.S. Senate set to vote next week on the appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the top Senate leadership and representatives from nearly a score of civil rights groups met this week in Washington to reiterate their fervent support of the nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, praised Sotomayor as “an impartial, moderate and mainstream jurist who is equipped with the necessary skills, values and experiences to be a successful Supreme Court Justice. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-NH, said that her “experience, ability, temperament and judgment” have shown there “can be no mystery about what kind of Justice Judge Sotomayor will be, and the Senate should overwhelmingly confirm her nomination without delay.”

Sonia Sotomayor

Leslie M. Proll, Director of the Washington office of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., noted that, if confirmed, Sotomayor would be only the third woman, and the first Hispanic-American on the nation’s highest court. She added that “her stellar qualifications, her rich life experiences, and her impeccable record of seventeen years on the federal bench should lead the full Senate to confirm her quickly and by a large margin.”

Sotomayor’s conformation is widely expected, given not only her qualifications and her smooth performance during hearings held earlier this month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but also because of the large margin Democrats hold in the Senate. Among other groups attending the news conference were the Hispanic Bar Association, the National Women’s Law Center, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

View more statements from the participants in the new conference.